


What Spring Does With the Cherry Trees

by Jenavira



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Cultural Differences, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Romance, kingship, short fuse porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 12:46:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3250223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenavira/pseuds/Jenavira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the spring after Dale's first hard winter, Bard takes up Thranduil's invitation and brings his small court - such as it is - to Mirkwood and the Elvenking's halls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Spring Does With the Cherry Trees

**Author's Note:**

> I have actually never written anything like this before: a long fic of undetermined length that's basically just my shippy headcanons. Might as well start now, right?
> 
> I am honestly not sure how much of this there will ever be, and it doesn't have a logical end other than "Bard dies" and I am so not interested in going there. There will, however, definitely be more.

"You should visit me in my kingdom, once you have had a chance to settle in," the Elvenking said to Bard as he departed. He was mounted once again on his great war-elk, which had survived the battle only a little bruised, and which looked much less ridiculous now that Bard had seen it charging through whole battalions of orcs.

"Of course," he answered, too surprised by the offer to say anything else. He had been to Mirkwood, of course, but only the far borders of that realm. The Elves who worked on the river had made it clear that anything else was entirely forbidden to men such as him.

Settling in took rather longer than anyone had expected. Not a month after the battle, winter struck the ruins of Dale with a vengeance. The wind blew in like darts of ice the morning the King Under the Mountain sent an envoy to the town, inviting the men of the town to shelter inside the mountain kingdom. (It was only natural for Bard to accept them; the leader of the envoy was Thorin's youngest nephew, the one he had welcomed into his home when the lad had been injured; it was nothing to do with his position at all. Or so he told himself.) 

Thorin's injuries had been grievous, but he was recovering well, or so everyone reassured them. Bard never saw him for more than a few moments at a time, and to get nearer to him he would have had to get past the halfling, who fussed over the Dwarven king like a mother hen over her one remaining chick. The Dwarves tolerated this behavior with amused smiles; Bard found himself more than occupied keeping his own children out of trouble (did Dwarves not believe in railings?), never mind the rest of his people, to pay too much mind.

Warm it might have been inside the mountain, but also dark and close.  And despite everyone's best efforts, the mountain still reeked of dragon, leading to more than a few fitful nights, his sleep broken by nightmares that drove him out of his bed - comfortable, if too short for a man of his height - to watch over his sleeping children, assuring himself again and again that they were safe and whole. As soon as the snow began to creep back from its high mark, Bard was ready to return to the ruined city. And no matter how firmly he insisted that no one need join him if they wished to say, the people of Laketown followed him.

And there, of course, someone needed, if not to be in charge, at least to organize things, to see that shelter was found for those who couldn't manage for themselves, to ration what stores they still had and see about spring crops, to set a watch on the walls - for although the armies of Orcs had been defeated at the beginning of winter, not all of them had gotten the message, and a few stragglers remained to harry anyone who stepped outside the safety of the walls. And Bard had been doing so much of this for so long, and everyone looked to him for answers even when he did not step forward, and it wasn't long before everyone had forgotten that it was Alfrid who named him King Bard, and he began to hear it even from lips that would never have willingly repeated anything that man had said. 

"I never asked for this," he muttered, running a hand over his face as he sent another petitioner on their way with orders for the distribution of stores. 

"Tough," said Hilda, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, looking up at him from beneath her brows. She may have been one of the first to turn to him for orders, but at least she didn't defer to him, and she had proven an invaluable ally in the long, hard winter in the strangeness of the Dwarven kingdom. "You've been too well known for too long, Dragonslayer," she said, grinning at him because she knew how much he hated being called that. "We need someone to be in charge, and you didn't run away fast enough."

"We've no need of a king," he protested, but she shook her head.

"It was your ancestor was Lord of Dale, in the old days," she said. "And turns out you're not so bad about it yourself. I think you're stuck with it." She rose, and clapped him on the shoulder like a man. "Get used to it, my lord."

So, with one thing and another, it was well into spring before Bard recalled the Elvenking's invitation. In truth, he might have forgotten it all together if not for the arrival of a visitor from the Woodland Realm. One of the Elves Bard recalled from last winter's disasters stopped by the city on his way south, and asked to speak with him particularly. 

"My father bade me remind you of his invitation," the Elf said without preamble, when Bard greeted him by Dale's gates.

"Your father?" Bard blinked in surprise. The Elf's face softened from its previous impenetrability, and Bard could have sworn he saw chagrin there, if such a thing were not below the dignity of Elves.

"King Thranduil," the Elf said grudgingly, but the resemblance was clear enough now he thought to look for it. The prince had his father's coloring and his bearing, if not his unearthly beauty. 

"I had not forgotten his invitation," Bard answered, which was almost not a lie. "It has been a hard winter," he offered by way of explanation.

The Elf-prince nodded, his face impassive again. "In our realm, too, which is why he is not yet displeased. If you wish to accept, though," he added, "I would do so quickly. My father is not well known for his patience." And that was the end of the interview, as the Elf turned his horse to the southern road. He had offered no explanation of his errand, but he owed them none, and Bard thought he could make a guess.

It was true about the Elvenking's patience, Bard mused as he watched the dust of the Elf prince's passing disappear over the horizon. Strange, perhaps, in a creature who would live forever, or so the tales told; but a king's whims had to be indulged. And it would do no good to lose his favor now, with their whole town in such a precarious position. Bard's stomach twisted pleasantly at the thought of meeting Thranduil again. Besides, he thought, it would be good for the children to see something other than ruins for a while. As a boy, he had dreamt of the halls of the Woodland Realm, forbidden as they had been and so tempting. Surely Bain and his daughters would feel the same.

And perhaps the Elvenking wished for more than a political alliance. It would be a lie to say that he had not thought of it, and Bard had never been very good at lying to himself. He had thought, perhaps, in Thranduil's tent on the night before the battle, that there had been a hint, but he was well out of practice with romance and they both had other, more pressing matters to deal with at the time. Still, he couldn't stop the slow rush of heat that slipped through him at the thought.

And then he put it aside. Whatever else might happen, an alliance with the Woodland Realm would keep Dale from crumbling in its infancy, and that had to be the most important thing right now. People were relying on him, and shouldering that weight would keep him grounded. It would have to.

He had every intention of returning to his home, gathering up the children and a few supplies, leaving Hilda in charge and striking off for the forest by early afternoon, but of course it was not so easy as that. Before he was a dozen paces inside the gates, he was stopped by a woman complaining of a problem with the wells. A few turnings later, it was a handful of young men with a scheme for reopening the markets. And beyond that -- the half-mile walk back to his home took him nearly an hour, all told. Bard was grateful all over again that the King's house had been too thoroughly destroyed for him to be installed there. It would have taken him twice as long.

And then there was the council to contend with. For that, he had no one to blame but himself. Reluctant to take on the mantle of King, he'd suggested an elected council of advisors, hoping that the people would prefer their own rule to his, and sooner or later he might escape the position unscathed. Instead the council spent days arguing, coming to no conclusions at all until he was forced to make a suggestion, at which point they all fell in line behind whatever solution Bard had proposed. It was an exhausting waste of time, but he couldn't bring himself to declare it a failure. Hilda, who had been the first to stand and the first to win support, was already laughing at him enough.

Fortunately, good will toward the Elves was still riding high; the people of Dale considered the Elven army their salvation against the Orcs, and they still remembered Thranduil's gifts that had seen them through the worst of their devastation. They were all too happy to send their new king off to treat with the Elvenking, the better to cement their alliance. It was decided that he would take Hilda and Percy with him, although that privilege was granted less for their positions on the council, Bard feared, than out of some idea that they must make an impressive retinue for the Elves. The date of their leaving was fixed for two days hence.

*

As he steered their boat up under the eaves of the forest, Bard felt his gut clench with nerves. Always before, this was where he was stopped by tall, stern-faced archers with no patience for a mortal bargeman and his curiosity. This time, the archers were there still, but their leader graced him with a small bow and called him "my lord."

"Tauriel!" Sigrid exclaimed, and the Elf's face broke into a wide and genuine smile before she composed herself again. She bowed in the direction of the children, less formally, and there was warmth in her voice when she replied.

"It is good to see you are all well."

"Tauriel helped us out of the town when the dragon came," Tilda whispered loudly in his ear. Bard looked up, surprised, and the Elf-maid nodded, a smile pulling at her lips again.

"Then I owe you my thanks, my lady," Bard said, "as much as my life is worth and more."

"I am no lady," she protested, though her smile did not disappear, "but King Thranduil's captain of the guard. I have been sent to escort you to his halls." At her nod, one of her men dropped to the riverbank to steady the boat for the passengers to alight.

Bard swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. Do not go into the forest, he had been told since he was a child. There are Elves there, and other dangers besides. He had always told his own children the same, ever more so since his livelihood had taken him closer and closer to its borders.

"Lead on," he said.

*

He had half expected to be blindfolded, but the guards simply led them up the banks of the river and down a path, near-invisible until it was pointed out, through the woods. There was no sign of those darker dangers his mother had taught him to fear, but the Elven guards remained vigilant, and once one of them turned his head sharply at a noise none of the humans noticed. Indeed, Bard was astounded he heard anything at all, for his children spent the entire trip thoroughly engaged in conversation with the Elf-captain. Well, as much conversation as they could manage, which meant that mostly they talked, and she nodded and smiled and exclaimed in all the important places. 

Seeing them safely occupied, he dropped back to the rear of the party. He'd meant to ask if Percy needed any assistance, but the old man was trudging on with a look of such determination he decided any question would be unwelcome. Hilda grinned at him, and showed no reluctance in using his arm to help pull herself up a steep patch of path. 

"At home already, are they?" she said. "Well, good neighbors make for good allies. It's a good sign."

"Is it?" Bard asked, his voice harder than he'd meant it to be. She gave him an odd look and did not argue. He was thinking, he found, of the Elvenking. All his mother's warnings seemed true of that one: he was fey, and dangerous. His cares were not those of mortal men. He had sought war before war was needed, and if that fact had saved them all in the end, it was only an accident. But he was enticing, too, with his impossible beauty, his gestures of friendship. And all the more dangerous for it, Bard thought, and knew it was true.

In far less time than Bard had expected, they came to a great gate, wrought of stone and living trees, that led down into the hillside. The guard who stood there passed them through without word or gesture. Even the children fell silent at this display of grandeur. Bard could not help but crane his neck up as he passed beneath the gate that was as tall as three of him.

The path led down, deeper into the hill, and they passed through a short dark passage before stepping into a great open cavern. Bard caught his breath at the sight, and he heard Hilda swearing quietly behind him. The halls of the Dwarves had been impressive, vast and terrifyingly endless, but they had been solid: even narrow bridges in Erebor felt as though they were as firm as the mountain itself. The halls of the Woodland King were smaller, but they felt like spun sugar as compared to Dwarven iron. Paths twisted and turned back on themselves, frail balconies looked out over empty air, and the ceiling - for they were surely underground, three months of winter underground meant that Bard would never mistake that feeling again - was lost in flickering shadows above them. The great pillars of the halls could have been the trunks of great trees, or merely stone cunningly wrought to appear so; it was impossible to tell.

When he had looked his fill, he looked to their guide again. Tauriel smiled fondly at them, a hint of smugness, perhaps, in the set of her mouth. 

"I had expected the King of the Elves to live amongst the trees, not in a cave like a Dwarf." He winced as soon as he'd said it, but she took no offense.

"These halls were built by the Dwarves," she answered, "and the Elves together, long ago and long before there was ever a king in the Greenwood. They were a fortress then, and a place of refuge against the darkness." 

"It's much prettier," Sigrid murmured, and Bard had to agree. Tauriel graced her with a pleased smile. 

"The Elves of the Greenwood have labored long to make it so," she said. "We hope you will like our hospitality as well as you like our halls. The steward will show you to your rooms, and you are invited to dine with the king tonight." With that she handed them over to the care of another Elf, a dark-haired, sour-looking fellow who examined them all with an air of distaste. 

Bard drew himself up to his full height and gave the man the same steady glare he used to give the Master, when he was being particularly unreasonable. When the steward sniffed and led them on, Hilda leaned into him and whispered, "Very kingly, my lord."

Bard resisted the urge to elbow her over to the edge of the walkway.

*

If he had been humbled by the first sight of the Elvenking's halls, Bard was awed by the chambers he was shown to. The main room was as large as the common room of old house, back in Laketown, which had been shared between the four of them and was bedroom to the youngest. Through a door that was scarcely a door - a graceful archway hung with curtains that evoked delicate tree mosses - was a bedroom with a bed that would have slept his whole family with room to spare. Further investigation revealed also a bath which filled from an ever-flowing stream, cold to the touch but with braziers which, he presumed, could be lit to heat it comfortably, and a wardrobe filled with coats, shirts, and trousers far more in his own style than anything he had seen an Elf garbed in. 

"If this is King Thranduil's guest chamber," he said aloud, as much to hear his voice fill the empty space as anything, "I dare not imagine how he lives." He'd been impressed with the Elvenking's dedication to luxury when he had seen his tent in the encampment in Dale, but this was on a different scale entirely.

A brief knock at the door barely preceded its opening, and Bain put his head through the gap. "Da?"

Bard turned around, and reached to pull the door open more fully. "You're not too far away, then, I trust?"

Bain shook his head, already looking calmer than when he had opened the door. "Next door," he said. "And Sigrid and Tilda have the room on the other side of yours." He fidgeted a little, nervous, but trying hard not to show it. He might only be a boy of twelve, but he'd faced down a dragon, and he wasn't going to show fear in the face of mere Elves now. Bard thought of how much he would have hated a show of affection when he was a boy of that age, and only said, "Big, isn't it?"

"Huge." Bain grinned, then. Naming the strangeness seemed to be enough to ease it. "I've never seen a bed that big."

"I suppose, then, it's not true that Elves don't sleep the way men do," Bard said. "I'd always wondered about that tale." 

Worry crossed Bain's face again, and he looked up at his father and asked, "Do you think it's safe, to sleep in the same halls as Elves?"

The same thought had been plaguing Bard's mind since they'd stepped off the barge, but he was not about to give his son any more cause to worry than he already had. "I don't know, son," he said, grave and solemn. "Compared to sleeping at home - maybe not. Compared to a dragon, though?" He smiled, and Bain smiled back. "I think we'll manage. Come on, let's look in on your sisters."

*

At dinner, Bard and his family were seated at the Elvenking's own table. He felt painfully self-conscious: the high table stretched the whole width of the hall, and although he supposed he had dined in more crowded spaces in Dale, with all the survivors of Laketown clustered together as closely as possible, he had never felt so on display. Thranduil was clearly in his element, which only made it worse. For all the grandeur of its halls, Erebor had been nowhere near this bad; Dwarves simply didn't have the ability to make him feel like a clumsy, filthy lout merely with their presence.

Worse, they were sat so close together that he could feel the warmth of the Elf beside him and could occasionally catch a scent redolent of spring grass which he tried to pretend was emanating from the Elvenking's crown, crafted of twigs with leaves in bud. Bard had not known he could be so aware of another person, the weight of them in the air next to him, their very presence pulling his attention, no matter how hard he tried otherwise. Once, he reached for a carafe of wine at the same time as the king, and their fingers brushed. Bard pulled back as though burned, and dedicated himself to water.

At least his children were with him. They reminded him of himself, kept him from falling too deeply under the Elvenking's spell, even as they were all lulled into gluttony by fine food and what was quite possibly the strongest wine Bard had ever tasted. He forbade Tilda to taste it, and Sigrid and Bain more than a glass each and pretended not to see the servant adding a little to their water, although he watched them very closely. They were all on their very best behaviour, though, a little cowed by the majesty of the Elven court. And he could not claim to be any different, after all.

"You are very quiet tonight," Thranduil observed some time into the meal, mirroring Bard's thoughts a little too closely for comfort. "Does something trouble you?"

"Trouble me?" Bard shook his head. "A year ago I was scraping a living on a barge under the thumb of the Master. A few days ago I was scraping a living out of broken ruins. To go from that to all this..." He gestured vaguely, and Thranduil smiled, a small but not unfriendly gesture. 

"Do you like it?" he asked, pride in his voice.

Bard couldn't help but laugh a little. "It seems well beyond my liking or disliking."

"I like it," Tilda chimed in from the Elvenking's other side. He leaned back, startled to have her interrupt what he had probably thought was a private conversation. Bard bit his tongue. If Thranduil turned any of his elegant cruelty on her, he would no doubt cause a scene, which would hardly bode well for the rest of their negotiations.

But all Thranduil said was, "Do you, little one?" He sounded a bit bemused, as if he didn't know how to speak to children.

"Yes," Tilda said firmly. "It's much prettier than the Dwarf halls."

Thranduil turned his expressive eyebrow raise on Bard, who shifted in his seat like a child under scrutiny from a parent. There had been no real opportunity to mention it so far. And surely the Elves had heard something of the arrangements made over the winter?

Never one to let an uncomfortable silence rest, Tilda chattered on cheerfully. "We stayed in the Lonely Mountain over the winter. It smelled terrible. Prince Fili said it was the dragon."

Thranduil turned back to give her his full attention, and Bard felt the loss of it like a weight lifted from his chest. "Indeed," the Elvenking said, "dragons do smell very foul."

She tilted her head at him, curious. "Did you ever meet the dragon?" 

"Not this one, no. But I did meet one once, very long ago."

Tilda's eyes widened. "Was it scary?"

For the king or for the dragon? ran through Bard's mind; he had seen Thranduil in the battle, and had been grateful they were fighting on the same side. But Thranduil merely answered, "Yes, very much so. But it turned out all right in the end. I survived, and the dragon did not." 

Tilda looked up at him now with the kind of awe and respect she had not shown to him, or indeed to any of the Elves, thus far. "So you killed a dragon, just like my da." 

"No." Thranduil's eyes met Bard's and held them. "I was but one of many in that fight. Your father slew a dragon alone, and that is no small thing." He broke their gaze then, and smiled back down at the girl beside him. "You should be very proud."

"I am," she said, matter-of-factly. From her voice, she was quite as proud of her father for slaying a dragon single-handed as she was for him telling jokes about the Master, or smuggling food into Laketown, or any one of the other myriad small things he had done to care for his family and his people. He ached for love of his little girl, and resisted the urge to bundle her up in his arms and kiss the top of her head. He had to maintain some kind of dignity in public, after all.

And more than that - he was no less pleased with Thranduil, who for all his unexpected friendship, had never seemed anything other than harsh in his dealings with others, who had shown such an unexpected kindness. 

Thranduil turned a curious look on him, and Bard realized all of a sudden that he'd been smiling at the Elf like a besotted fool for - he wasn't sure, but for far too long. He covered it as best he could with his wineglass, but once Thranduil looked away, Bard could feel the smile make another appearance.   
  


*

The same steward escorted the mortals back to their quarters, but his surly presence made a visible dent in Sigrid's otherwise cheerful mood, and Bard dismissed him as soon as he was sure they would not lose their way. Once he'd seen his children all safely abed, he lingered in the corridor before returning to his own sumptuous rooms. To call it a hallway was to do it a disservice. The path that connected their quarters was more private than most they had seen in the palace, but it still opened up every few feet to look out on a great expanse of cavern. These openings were curtained with flowering vines - and how they flowered here in the dark, lit only by torchlight, Bard did not know. Some Elvish magic, he presumed. They smelled more of high summer than of the early spring he knew waited outside, but here in the Elvenking's caves, he could not tell the difference.

As if summoned by Bard's thoughts, Thranduil himself appeared around the bend of the hall. Bard inclined his head in a greeting, and Thranduil stepped forward, as if he had been waiting for permission to approach.

"I hope you find your quarters pleasing," he said, his melodic voice pitched low, for Bard's ears alone. Bard wondered just how well sound traveled in these wide open halls.

"They are no more nor less than what I would have expected," he answered, and could not help but laugh a little at the crease that appeared between the Elvenking's brows. "They are very fine, thank you."

"I would not wish you to be uncomfortable in my halls," Thranduil said. "I thought you would wish to be close to your children. They take after their father," he said lightly. And then, at Bard's look of surprise, he added, "Very charming."

The twist of a half-smile on Thranduil's lips, the hesitancy of his complement, the way he stood so close in the wide hall - all suddenly slid into focus. Well out of practice he might have been, but Bard was not entirely blind.  I was not wrong, the thought;  he has wanted this, too .

If he had not been half-drunk on the Thranduil's excellent wine, he would most likely have excused himself politely to bed. Instead, Bard stepped forward into Thranduil's space, a smaller step than it could have been, and pressed his mouth to the other's. 

It was strange, having to tilt his head back ever so slightly to do so. Bard stepped back as quickly as he had moved in, already a little ashamed of his brashness, but he could not ignore the thrill of pleasure that shot through him when he saw the look in Thranduil's eyes. Surprise, yes, but also gratification and pleasure. And then his expression closed off and he was the ice-cold Elvenking again. 

"You should be careful what you venture, master bowman," he said, and his low voice rang now not intimate but intimidating. "You do not know what you risk."

Bard's breath caught in his throat, but he refused to be cowed. He was no child but a man grown and experienced, and he knew he had read the signs rightly. "I may not have as many years as you," he allowed, "but I know myself well enough, I think. I will take the risk."

Thranduil regarded him solemnly for a long moment, then inclined his head in a mirror of Bard's earlier greeting. "Good night, King Bard."

"Good night, King Thranduil." Bard's tongue felt heavy in his mouth as he spoke, but if Thranduil heard anything amiss in his voice, he gave no sign. The Elvenking retreated as silently as he had come, leaving Bard alone - and not a little confused - in the corridor. 

 


End file.
